One day you wash up on the beach, wet and naked. Another day you wash back out. In between, the scenery changes constantly.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Reason #5457 Trump Was Elected

Over-regulation. Americans as a whole think they are over-regulated. Generally speaking, they perceive themselves as not needing regulation, but that the other guy does. Donald Trump, with a background in business, has a credible chance of making a dent in the administrative state:

President Trump is “maniacally focused” on keeping the promises he made to America during his campaign, White House strategist Steve Bannon said Thursday during a panel with chief of staff Reince Priebus. That includes enforcing immigration law — “protecting the sovereignty of the United States,” as Priebus said — and an agenda of deregulation that Bannon called the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”

Bannon warned the audience in the Potomac Ballroom at the Conservative Political Action Conference to expect intensifying attacks on Trump the “corporatist, globalist media” that is opposed to the president’s agenda of economic nationalism. “If you think you are getting your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken,” said Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News. “We want you to have our backs . . . to hold us accountable for what we promised.”

A law that’s been successfully used only once until now is the conduit for a whole lot of action on Capitol Hill.

Republicans in Congress are expected to send a stream of bills — most of which require a single sentence — to President Donald Trump’s desk, using a process known as the Congressional Review Act to repeal agency rules. The act was tucked into 1996 legislation tied to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s famous “Contract with America.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, at a press conference last week, joined a group of Republican leaders who have trumpeted using the CRA to roll back regulations put in place under President Barack Obama. The law allows Congress to repeal certain rules of the previous administration under a fast-track process that requires only a simple majority in the Senate. Congress generally has 60 days to begin repeal of those rules.